Translated by Fausto Giudice, Tlaxcala
In May 1994, during the Tutsi genocide, the mercenary Paul Barril, a former Élysée gendarme, went with his men through the Istres air force base to Rwanda to provide assistance to the genocidal government. The association Survie asks for a hearing of Admiral Lanxade, chief of defense of the French Armed Forces at the time, to shed light on this affair.
In May 1994, when the Tutsi genocide had been underway for more than a month, Paul Barril went to Rwanda with several mercenaries [1] to provide assistance to the Rwandan Interim Government (GIR). This service, which consisted of collecting intelligence, providing military training to the government forces (FAR) and participating in military operations, was made official afterwards by a contract signed on 28 May 1994 between Paul Barril and the Prime Minister of the GIR [2].
The judicial investigation opened against Paul Barril shows that in order to travel to Rwanda in a Falcon with his men, the former Élysée gendarme made a stopover at Istres [3], a French air force base.
This revelation raises crucial questions for the highest military and political authorities, as François Crétollier, Survie's spokesperson, points out: “What authorisation did Paul Barril receive to land on an army base when he went to lend a hand to the genocidaires? How did the French authorities react to this passage of mercenaries through a military base? This passage through Istres establishes that it is impossible to believe that the mercenaries in Rwanda acted in a private capacity, without the knowledge and approval of the French authorities [4]. And above all, a fundamental question remains: why did Paul Barril stop in Istres?”
The Istres air base (BA125 Istres-Le Tubé) has the particularity of hosting a Dassault Flight Test Centre (CEV), which has all the technological and human means to carry out measurements, configure and analyse the electronic equipment of an aircraft. Is this stopover of Paul Barril on 9 May to go to Kigali [5] to be brought together with the discovery a few days later in the Rwandan capital of a tampered Air France Concorde black box [6]?
It is for these reasons that Survie, the civil party, has asked the investigating judge [7] to hear Admiral Lanxade, Chief of Defense of the armed forces at the time of the events, under President François Mitterrand.
Contact: Mehdi Derradji: +33 6 52 21 15 61
Notes
[1] In May 1994, Paul Barril left for Rwanda with two members of the Habyarimana family (Léon Habyarimana and Alphonse Ntirivamunda) and his men (Marc Poussard and four others who remained on site: Luc Dupriez, Christophe Meynard, Jean-Marc Souren, Franck Appieto). A Falcon plane was reserved on 6 May. The departure took place on 9 May from Le Bourget. The plane made a short stopover at the Istres base. The plane arrived in Bangui on 9 May, then left on 11 May for Goma. On 11 May, the passengers went to Rwanda, to Gisenyi, then Kigali.
[2] Jean Kambanda, sentenced to life in prison for genocide by the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda).
[3] While the civilian airport of Marignane is in the immediate vicinity, just on the other side of the Berre Lagoon. It is at Marignane that a technical stopover for a private plane should have taken place - assuming it was required.
[4] On the contrary, this passage through an army base echoes General Quesnot's proposed indirect strategy, and the Huchon-Rwabalinda meetings (see “Le crapuleux destin de Robert-Bernard Martin : Bob Denard et le Rwanda”, rapport de l’association Survie, February 2018, p.25).
[5] At a time when no one else was going to Rwanda.
[6] A black box was found on 27 May by the Blue Helmets in Kigali, abandoned near the site of the crash of Habyarimana's plane - even though access to this site had been forbidden by the FAR until 21 May. It was established that it was in fact a black box (voice recorder) from an Air France Concorde. It contains a montage of excerpts of conversations between the control tower and an aircraft on the tarmac in Kigali. This black box “deposited in the grass in Kigali after the attack of 6 April 1994, while the city was on fire and blood” raises many questions, the answer to which - as the journalist Patrick de St Exupéry indicates in the conclusion of his article – “lies in one place, only one: Paris.” (cf. « Le prétendu mystère de la boîte noire du génocide rwandais », Patrick de St Exupéry, Le Monde, 9 April 2009)
[7] Paul Barril has been the subject of a judicial inquiry for eight years on charges of complicity in genocide, following a complaint in 2013 by Survie, the French Human Rights League and the International Federation for Human Rights. Despite the multiple proofs of the support given by Paul Barril and his men to the genocidal regime, Paul Barril has never been indicted. Today, severely affected by Parkinson's disease, the chances of seeing him answer for his actions before the courts are diminishing. Nearly 28 years after the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, many grey areas remain regarding the use of mercenaries by French decision-makers at the time.
